Asteroid detected on collision course with Earth

[Stargazer_2098]

This is Off-topic, but it is also very important:



An asteroid has been on a potential collision course with Earth.
No; this is not a joke, and not a movie.
The asteroid is on the size of a football-field have huge changes for crashing into the earth in the year 2019, and we will all be around to see it.
The name of the asteroid is 2002 NT7, its about 2 kilometers in length, and it travels at the speed of 25 kilometers per secound.
If, and when it hits, it will have the same force as the Tungaska-asteroid in the early 1900's.
If it hits on land, it can create major earthquakes, and it will have the same force as 20,0000 hiroshima-nukes.
If it hits the sea, it can create gigantic floodwaves whitch can flood many cities and land on the coasts.

Just tought you wanted to know...


Stargazer.

[Thilo]

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2002nt7.html

Impact probability: 5.2e-06
p = 0,0000052

On direct collision course? ;-)
Oh please .. stop quoting magazines living from these news :P

[Stargazer_2098]

Oops.

What I ment was potential impact risk.
Sorry for saying direct

*does a little edit at the above post*

Thanks.

The source of this information is not a magazine, by the way; its CNN..


Stargazer.

[Thilo]

Last edited by Stargazer_2098 on Wed Jul 24, 2002 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total

Do i have to say more?

[Sum0]

Alright, calm down...
I can't say that I'm too worried about this news. Look at 2002 EM, 1950 D(something), both of them missed... The only difference about this one is that we've detected it earlier. Space is huge. Earth is tiny.


And well, if it hits, we can make a lot of films about it.

**another edit**

Whoops. 1950 DA hasn't quite hit yet.

[ba22a]

I tried plugging in the figures from http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2002+NT7
but couldnt even get close to a collision. This is the first time I've edited an scc file, anyone know where I went wrong? (the period? this is the only figure not taken directly from JPL)

Code: Select all

"2002 NT7" "Sol"
{
   Class "asteroid"
   Mesh "asteroid.cms"
   Texture "asteroid.jpg"
   Radius 2.030

   EllipticalOrbit
   {
   Period            0.869537818 # 317.38130357 days
   SemiMajorAxis     1.739075636
   Eccentricity      0.530324939
   Inclination       42.3763219
   AscendingNode   132.1763308
   ArgOfPericenter  300.5607952
      MeanAnomaly     185.4742935
   Epoch           2452200.5
   }

   RotationPeriod   30.0
   Albedo            0.1
}


[/quote]

[Guest]

2km wide....

size of a football field....

hmmm, slight inconsistancy there.

2km wide is MUCH larger than a football field. Larger by many orders of magnitude. (around 8x I think)

And the Tunguska (sp?) asteroid was much much smaller than a 2km diameter. It was several hundred meters wide at most.

[ba22a]

Period 2.294964383 # 837.662 days

from http://newton.dm.unipi.it/cgi-bin/neody ... 02NT7;main

Still only gets me within 709,570 km of earth on 1 Feb 2019 (at 04:40). Anyone got a more, er, spectactular set of values?

[Sum0]

Well, if Celestia could predict everything exactly, there'd be no need for astronomers... Seriously though, the data isn't exact, and probably won't be for many years, and beside Celestia isn't perfect at calculating orbits.

A thought - it's only 2km across and very dark, yet according to Celestia it'll be visible with binoculars. Quite scary.

[Thilo]

The orbit of that asteroid is based on estimations ... this is, why the probability may be incorrect by the factor of 100, yet, if you look at the probability even if you kill 3 zeros it's still improbable enough :D

[Stargazer_2098]

The risk of being hit by this asteroid is minimal, what I am saying here is that the treath is credible.
Here's the news about this rock, courtesy of CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/07/2 ... index.html

Sorry for my over-reaction, but you have to agree that the treath of asteroids are real, and there might even by a greater change of being hit by a asteroid, then dying in a plane-crash.
Asteroids are the only real threat to the survival of the human race for the time being, except from ourselfs, that is...
So I feel excused for my possible over-reaction for this thing.


Stargazer.

[Matt McIrvin]

That NASA page

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/

is a great place to go to evaluate these asteroid collision reports. They keep track of all currently known potentially hazardous asteroids, and rank them according to probability, possible severity, and a couple of different combined scales of estimated disaster risk, one of which (the Torino Scale) is color-coded and probably inspired Tom Ridge's terrorism alert scale.

The Torino Scale goes from zero to 10. So far I've never seen anything on that list that rates above a 1 (which basically means "worth looking into some more").

One thing to note is that this international observation effort mostly concentrates on asteroids sufficient to cause really big catastrophes. Smaller ones on the scale of the one that probably caused the 1908 Tunguska explosion are more common and harder to see. They could do some serious local damage if they happened to hit in a populated place, and there's also the danger that in the resulting confusion one could be mistaken for a nuclear attack. Of course, below a certain frequency the risk becomes much less of a worry than other disasters like fires and earthquakes, but it's worthy of consideration.

[Guest]

A little off-topic, this, but :
Stargazer said :

Asteroids are the only real threat to the survival of the human race for the time being, except from ourselfs, that is...

Anyone who watches the BBC's Horizon programmes (or reads New Scientist) will tell you that as well as huge killer asterioids/comets, small killer asteroids/comets, and ourselves, other threats to our existence include (to name but a few) :
Supervolcanoes - most notably the 70km wide caldera of Yellowstone, which is due for an eruption.
Pandemics.
Earthquakes.
Ultra-huge tsumanis cause by landslides (watch out if you're on the east coast of America - the island of La Palma looks rather shaky).

Scaremongering is all very well, but we can't very well do a lot about a supervolcanoe or earthquakes or tsunamis. So why worry ?
(yes, I suppose we need a better asteroid monitoring system though)

(Mad Boris)

[XEL]

Code: Select all

"2002 NT7" "Sol"
{
   Class "asteroid"
   Mesh "asteroid.cms"
   Texture "asteroid.jpg"
   Radius 2.030
   .....
   .....



I thought the asteroid has a diameter of 2km, not a 2km Radius ?



XEL

[logix^nuance]

Stargazer_2098 wrote:

"If, and when it hits, it will have the same force as the Tungaska-asteroid in the early 1900's"


I think this is not quite correct...

The Tunguska-Object had a diameter of 50-70 meters,
and exploded in the air. (the reason for no crater)
2002nt7 has a diameter of 2km ( in words: twothousand meters !! )
the asteroid that probably wiped out the dinosaurs had around 1,5 - 2km

so if this "litte" thing called 2002nt7 hits the earth, the civilization we know
today will come to an very fast end!

the impact enery will be 1.2e+06 MT (1MT= 1,000,000 Tons of TNT)
if it hits a landmass the atmosphere will be filled with dust for decades,
maybe for hundrets of years. (nuclear winter scenario, but much stronger)
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions will go on for years...
and when it goes into the sea, it will cause tsunamis far beyond
everything mankind has ever encountered.

for more info visit: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2002nt7.html

[Stargazer_2098]

logix^nuance:

Yes, I'm afraid you might be very correct there.
I was just trying not to overplay this thing, but if it hits, the effect on global weather will be enorumus, especially if it hits water.
Anyone read the book "Footfall"? It has a very nice and realistic describtion of a similar asteroid object slamming into the earth.

I think the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs for 65 billion years ago, was about 5 kilometers+ in diameter (correct me if i am wrong, which i probably am).
This thing is just a little smaller, but the effects of it can be enourmus on both the hemisphere's.

Lets just hope for now that this thing dont hit.

Scientists all over the world are now observing this rock, and making more calculations.
In about a week, we might know for sure where its going to.

Besides: a lot of things can happen both in space, and on the earth in 17 years, so we cant say anything for sure...



Stargazer.

[Mikeydude750]

logix^nuance:
I think the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs for 65 billion years ago, was about 5 kilometers+ in diameter (correct me if i am wrong, which i probably am).

First of all...the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit 65 MILLION years ago. The Universe was not in existence 65 billion years ago.

And the dinosaur killer was 6 miles across(10 kilometers, I believe).

This thing is 2 kilometers, so that's about a mile and a half...I think.

[Thilo]

1. Yes, the asteroid of the dinosaurs was much bigger.. if you believe scientists
2. They are theoretizing and saying this and this will hapen, although none of them was ever present at an asteroid impact. While an impact might really be disastrous, all these speculations about this and this will happen may be bullshit ;)
Maybe it will be much more harmless, or much more devastating ..

Yes, of course you can compute physically the energy that will be converted from kinetic energy, but there are so many factors and variables in this game that you cannot possibly say what is going to happen in the long run. How are the scientists for example supposed to know how long the nuclear winter lasts?

So please stop quoting magazines with journalists or scientists wanting to get money, and drawing the nicest pictures of death while all this what they're telling you might be crap ;)

[Ferret]

Here's a thought, what if it hits the polar ice caps, it would kinda flood the world...heh heh...

[Raul.]

Here's a thought, what if it hits the polar ice caps, it would kinda flood the world...heh heh...

Well, if it hits the north polar cap there'd be huge tsunamis but sea level won't rise at all (i guess that's what you meant). South pole it's a different story...